


Flight of the Dryads

by BegForMercy



Category: Heroes of the Storm (Video Game), World of Warcraft
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:35:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24550006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BegForMercy/pseuds/BegForMercy
Summary: In an alternate reality where the Burning Legion claimed victory in the Battle of Mount Hyjal, the world is now threatened by a storm of fel-fire that would soon grow to consume the whole of Kalimdor. Lunara, first daughter of the half-deer, half-elven demigod known as Cenarius, must do everything she can to ensure both her and her younger sister make it to the promised safety of the Emerald Dream before the world is lost to the flame.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

1.

From every corner of the ancient lands of Kalimdor, the fire could be seen. It hung in the sky like a second sun, its emerald flames wrapping around the remains of the colossal World Tree Nordrassil and billowing out and down the sides of Mount Hyjal. Almost every living creature on the continent turned to watch the fire burn, to observe the great towers of smoke that now flowed like blood from the mountain. Dark clouds gathered around that blazing, blinding peak, streaks of emerald lightning striking out as the storm marched down the summit and into the surrounding woodlands. There was no hope in stopping the coming storm, for the war against the Burning Legion was lost, the resistance reduced to corpses and ash, and now those demonic enemies of Life itself have claimed their prize. For the denizens of Kalimdor, all there was left to do was to watch and wait for the flames to pour down the mountain and consume them.

Far below the storms and flames that now ravaged the heavens, nestled against the base of Mount Hyjal, the smoldering remains of Bough Shadow lie. A child of the World Tree once dwelled here, its branches towering over the forests the same way its predecessor once scraped the heavens themselves with its crown. Now, in the aftermath of the war that had culminated in the death of Nordrassil, this child too lies dead, a flimsy trail of smoke rising from its charred, gray husk. An edifice of white marble columns and stairs rests against the stump, where upon it, a strange, circular gateway etched with emerald runes lies dormant and silent. Tiny streaks of green light crackle around the frame, similar to the lightning that now assails the sky but more calm and fluid, the winding waves and patterns of the light a sharp contrast to the rough, jagged lightning that surged overhead.

Even the most untrained of magic users could identify the energy as Nature magic - and would have done so, had anyone been there to observe it. Only the corpses of Bough Shadow’s guardians remain, their identities masked by the great mounds of moss, vines and wildflowers that have grown up to claim them merely hours after the tree’s destruction. Despite the devastating flames that had swept through Bough Shadow and destroyed it in less than a day, nature has raced just as swiftly to reclaim it, the speed at which the regrowth occurred no doubt in thanks to the energies that once flowed freely from the Great Tree’s gateway. That sudden, wild growth stood in defiance of the destruction that now threatened to swallow the world whole, a reminder of the power the wilds of Kalimdor possess. But the restorative energies of Nature magic could not repair the loss of the World Tree and its child, nor could it prevent the descent of the storm. Soon, the fury of the Legion would once again fall upon Bough Shadow, rendering what little had been reclaimed by Nature to ash and cinders once more.

With the storms brewing overhead, a tiny orb of blue light descended upon the remains of Bough Shadow, buzzing through the air like an insect but having no body or wings with which to fly. To the elven denizens of Kalimdor, the tiny spirit was known as a wisp, a caretaker of the forest bound to the world through the raw magics of Nature herself. It crossed through the middle of Bough Shadow before snaking between the trees at the perimeter of the meadow, as if it was an eye trying to take in every little detail it could. It left as quickly as it came, disappearing into the tall grass that had erupted around the mounds of deceased guardians. The forest became quiet and still once more, the sound of the wind only periodically interrupted by distant thunder.

Several minutes later, the tall grass began to stir. What emerged was no demon or lifeless ghoul, no elf or woodland critter, but something else entirely: it was a dryad. The creature had the four legs and body of a woodland fawn, but where one would expect the neck and head of a deer instead rose the stomach, torso, arms and head of the violet-skinned night elves that were native to Kalimdor. Her upper body was covered with an assortment of green leaves and vines that snaked in and out of her skin like emerald veins, and upon her forehead was a pair of small, branched antlers. Her eyes glowed with a dim orange light, and her waist length green hair snapped side to side as if caught in a tumultuous, invisible breeze. The dryad gripped a wooden spear with a tip made from sharpened amber, a weapon she clenched tightly as she took in the devastation that surrounded her.

As her eyes scanned the perimeter of Bough Shadow, the wisp that had disappeared into the tall grass returned. The dryad raising her right hand to allow the wisp to swirl around it as if in some sort of greeting, or perhaps as if they were touching base on what each had seen of the meadow. A moment later, the dryad pointed toward the south, and the wisp accepted the command and left, disappearing into the shadows of the forest.

The dryad stepped into Bough Shadow and began approaching the marble edifice that laid on the southern side of the Great Tree’s remains. Her hooves clacked on the ancient stone ramp that led to the gateway, white petals and green leaves from the peacebloom that grew in her hair falling to the ground as she walked. Where they fell, great stalks of grass and flowers bloomed, the power emanating from the creature as strong and attuned to Nature as what once poured from the portal. She ran her free hand across the glowing green runes of the gateway, pulling back and gasping as feedback from the magic within them shocked her fingers. The creature let out a sigh, banging her fist into the gateway and cursing at her misfortune.

The damaged gateway was once a portal into a verdant spirit realm known as the Emerald Dream, a reflection of a primordial version of Kalimdor, what the continent once and could have continued to been had mortal civilizations not interfered with the growth of the wilds. It was all that was left of the land the dryad once called her home, a memory of what she had during her fifteen thousand years of life before the coming of the storm that would soon engulf the whole of Kalimdor. It was meant to be her means of escaping the chaos, of finding some last respite from her failures and her suffering. But with its destruction, she remained trapped on Kalimdor, and if she could find no other way to the Dream, she would be forced to live her final moments at the mercy of the lightning and flames that now bled from the mountain.

Just as she was about to turn and leave Bough Shadow, her wisp returned and flew in dramatic circles around her face. It paused in front of her and then shot into the woods, the dryad turning to observe whatever it had come to warn her about. A stirring of tall grass stopped as she looked, and the air grew tense and silent as both parties froze in fright. But when the wisp returned and graced the dryad’s fingers, she untensed her muscles and sighed, her connection to the spirit allowing it to tell her it was no enemy stalking in the shadows but something much closer.

“It’s okay, sister. You can come out now.”

From the tall grass emerged a second dryad, her hair short and orange while her upper body’s skin was not violet but rather a shade of light green. She held her arms close to her and was trembling, her head turning back and forth as she took in her surroundings.

“Y-you’re… Lunara, aren’t you? The first daughter…” the newcomer asked, her voice shaking. “My… _oldest…_ sister.”

“Yes, I am,” Lunara replied.

“We… lost the war, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did.”

Lunara’s hearts, one each in her upper and lower bodies, ached at seeing the younger dryad and the state she was in. She was barely a handful of centuries old and only a little more than half of the size of Lunara’s height of eight feet. The younger dryad was a child caught in one of the worst places affected by the war. Lunara did her best to erase the sorrow from her own face and offer a reassuring smile to the younger dryad.

“And what would your name be, little one?”

“I’m Iphy… I saw your wisp… and the bodies… what happened here?”

Lunara raised her hand to the stump of the great tree of Bough Shadow, its remains towering over them despite most of it being cut down. “No doubt the Legion destroyed the Great Tree’s portal to prevent reinforcements from coming through the Dream. But they’re long gone from this place. We’ll be safe here, for a time.”

Iphy breathed deeply, her trembling subsiding just a little at being told there were no demons close enough to find them. Lunara felt bad, knowing what she said was partly a lie. Her wisp had warned her of a regiment of red-skinned demons known as orcs to the south, the creatures and the wolves they kept as companions sickened by the Legion’s dark magics, the Fel. The orcs were traveling away from Bough Shadow, towards the river to the west, but there was no telling what fel magic did to the tracking capabilities of the wolves. Even now, the wolves could have picked up their scent and turned to track the dryads down. At that thought, Lunara sent her wisp into the surrounding forests of Ashenvale to keep a vigil on their foes, to keep both her and her younger sister safe from their terrible wrath.

Iphy moved to the side of the marble edifice, pointing up at the storms rattling the sides of Mount Hyjal. “They’re getting closer. The storms. I’ve been watching them. Will we have to leave?”

Lunara nodded. “As far south as we can go, I’m afraid. Those storms won’t be stopping anytime soon.”

“Why did you come here then? Rather than going south?”

“Well, I wanted to go into the Dream to take shelter from the storm. Have you been there before, little one? It’s a lovely place.”

“No… father said it was too dangerous. Because of the Nightmare.”

Lunara looked down to the ground. As if their situation wasn’t dire enough, even the beloved Dream was not without its problems. Corruption, entirely independent from the forces that now sought to destroy their world, had infected the Dream, causing all it touched to be afflicted by a Nightmare that burned the soul and maddened the mind. Its presence had long ago denied the dryad and her siblings their birth rite of shifting into the Dream at will to bask in the splendors of its ethereal meadows and forests. To a dryad as ancient and well-traveled as Lunara, the thought that some of her brothers and sisters had never once physically traversed the Dream before in their lives angered her greatly.

“The Dream is only dangerous when you try to phase into it by yourself, without the aid of a Great Tree’s portal,” Lunara explained, staring up at the ruined gateway. “It would have been safe for you to travel into the dream through Bough Shadow. There’s no corruption where the Great Trees lead.”

“I see… and now that’s not possible anymore,” Iphy sighed.

“Not true. There’s another Great Tree far to the south in Feralas, with another portal that’s safe. I could bring you there with me. It’s a long journey, but we can make it.”

“Feralas… I’ve never gone so far from home before.”

“You’ll be safe with me. Feralas is as wonderful as Ashenvale, if not more, and it’s most certainly been untouched by the war. You’d love it there.”

“What about the others?”

Lunara gave a small, somber smile, gesturing to the storm clouds above. “We don’t have the time to look for them, and the forest is swarming with demons. If any of our other siblings are still alive, they’re already traveling to Feralas on their own. It’ll just have to be you and me. Come, we have no time to waste. We can get to the Barrens before sunset.”

As Lunara walked down the marble stairs and into the southern woods, she noticed Iphy wasn’t following. She turned, and the younger dryad was pointing at her, at the wooden fingers and palm that Lunara wrapped around her spear.

“The stories are true, aren’t they?” Iphy asked. “Your arm. It’s made of wood. Like our brothers, but not natural.”

“How perceptive, little one. Yes, this is no glove or armor.” Lunara replied, shifting her spear to her right hand and raising her left arm. From the elbow down, the limb was made entirely of wood, bark and flesh mingling seamlessly into one. It moved no differently than the arm she once had, a near perfect replacement, one that still ached now and again from memories of the trauma that had brought such a wound upon her in the first place.

“My friends said you lost it in the first war. With the demons. Is that true?”

“Yes. Very early on in the War of the Ancients, actually. I missed quite a lot of the fighting back then.”

“How did we win back then?” Iphy asked.

Lunara paused before answering, sighing as her eyes became lost in thought. “One miracle after the next,” she said with sorrow she could not deny.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

_Lunara gagged at the sight of the night elven corpse that lied at her feet. Like her, the little girl had violet skin, long, pointed ears, eyes that glowed in the dark. They were so similar that the dryad could share in the fear that painted the deceased elf’s face, could empathize with the suffering the girl had gone through. It did not matter that the dryad was a descendent of the Gods and the elf was merely an evolution of the savage, terrible trolls. Lunara knew they were one in the same, creatures afflicted by war, creatures that had to fight for their survival, and that the death of a night elf was no different than the death of a dryad. She could no longer hide as the night elven empire crumbled before the might of the Legion. They shared the consequences of this war, shared the world that was now being ravaged by towering spirals of emerald fire. It didn’t matter that her father had forbade her from participating in the War of the Ancients: for the sake of Kalimdor, she had to fight._

_Lunara grabbed the only weapon she could find: an iron pike gripped in the hands of another deceased night elf just outside the barracks of the night elven farming town. The Legion forces that had ravaged the town were still here, their terrible war cries and screaming echoing through the streets. She would find the demons and put an end to this bloodshed. It was her duty as a child of the Gods. She had the power that the night elves lacked, the power to slay these mangy servants of the Legion._

_She turned back to the body of the girl and saw a little blue light. A wisp. The night elf’s spirit floated above her corpse, stared at the dryad with a face whose outline could just barely be seen in the glow of the orb, and dashed off into the forest. Shaking her head to refocus herself, Lunara turned back toward the town. She assured herself one last time before turning the corner and descending the main road of the town._

_The demons were smashing open the doors of buildings, entering houses that were filled with screams and leaving them in silence. They were nearly nine feet tall, with red skin limned with emerald fire, their weapons and armor and flesh all burning the same sickly glow that now engulfed the houses and surrounding woods. Lunara snuck up to one and drove her pike deep into its heart, the demon letting out a roar as bright green blood oozed from its wound. The others turned and faced her, and she turned to run, content to disappear into the forest and strike again when their backs were turned. But there was another demon behind her. And another. They were everywhere, all similar looking and uniform, holding their sinister looking blades tightly as they smiled down at the lone dryad._

_Lunara turned to the right to flee between the houses and into the woods, but a demon grabbed her arm, raised its blade high into the sky, and brought it crashing down on her elbow. Pain unlike anything she had ever felt before shot through her arm, a burning sensation seeping up her veins and into her shoulder. It felt as if fire was burning just beneath her skin, melting her flesh and boiling her blood. She looked down and her arm was cut clean off, right at the elbow. She screamed. The demons laughed, staring at her with beady, green eyes. They kicked her to the ground and prepared to strike again._

_A streak of blue light descended from the sky, buzzing around the demons and briefly distracting them. Just as the corners of her vision began to cloud, her brother Zaetar burst from a nearby alley, scooped her up, and ran. The wisp, the soul of the elven child, had led him to her. She could hear the stomping of hooves and metal boots as she lost consciousness. There was only darkness and pain as the light faded from her eyes, as the fire burning beneath her skin came ever closer to her hearts…_

Lunar and Iphy managed to reach the border of Ashenvale and the Barrens without being spotted by any demons. The patrolling orcs had gone straight across the river and left, and any other enemies lurking in the shadows of the forest were avoided through the help of the wisp that guided the two dryads. The trees of Eastern Ashenvale were tiny and sparse, a stark contrast to the colossal ironwood groves that dotted the lands west of the river. Iphy stared up at them in silence, before racing up to trot astride her sister and speak.

“These trees weren’t here when I went into hiding. The orcs had cut them all down.”

“Yes,” Lunara affirmed. “They cut down nearly every tree east of the Falfarren, and a good portion of them just west of it, in nearly three days.”

“So where did these new trees come from?”

Lunara scowled. “Our father used up a great portion of his power to revive the forest just after pushing the orcs back across the river and into the east with the night elf Sentinels. When he did so, the orcs revealed their true power and made him pay for his arrogance with his life.”

Iphy looked to the ground. “I felt it. When he died. The whole forest seemed to shutter around me. Did you feel it as well?”

“Of course I did. I was there when he died.” Lunara said. The memory would never leave her mind. It was as if a shockwave went through both the physical world and the Dream at once, every twig and branch in the forest trembling at the death of the dryads’ father, the demi-god Cenarius. The trees screamed, the flowers wailed, and the songbirds fluttered from the boughs of the ironwood trees in droves. Lunara remembered the leader of the orcs standing over her father’s corpse, waving his axe in the air, screaming a terrible scream as he cried out his victory over the elves.

_The demi-god has fallen! The Warsong is supreme!_

When the orcs first arrived on Kalimdor by a fleet of ships, Cenarius and the night elves let them be, their uncertainty on whether they were demons driving them to seek peace before war. That gave the orcs the first strike. Almost as soon as Lunara’s father fell to their attacks, the demons came in full force, the orcs serving them no differently than any of the other monsters that inhabit the Legion’s ranks. Lunara felt nothing but anger that her people had not eradicated the orcs when they first arrived, while their forces were disorganized and stumbling blindly through the Barrens.

Why had her father hesitated to deal with the orcs sooner? She knew he could sense the corruption within them as she did, the fel energies that did not fully reveal themselves until after Cenarius had weakened himself to revive the forest. Demons or not, the orcs had represented a grave threat to the wilds of the Kalimdor, and allowing them time to rally and prepare for war was nothing short of insanity. To Lunara, it seemed as if her father would only fight until the situation had grown so dire that the very fate of the world hung in the balance. Cenarius had hesitated before, in the War of the Ancients, and he hesitated now, and that hesitation had costed him his life. With his death, the greatest resistance that could have stood against the Legion was lost, a terrible blow that ultimately led to the demonic horde’s victory on Mount Hyjal.

Lunara turned back toward the mountain. The distance made Hyjal look smaller, but the storms didn’t change in size at all. The Legion’s fel storms had grown larger and were getting closer to Ashenvale. As she watched, tiny black dots descended from the clouds and disappeared into the canopies in droves.

“Iphy, look,” the older dryad said, pointing toward the specs. “What do you see?”

“Birds… eagles? No… they’re glowing…”

“They’re called doomguard. Flying demons. We won’t be safe traversing the Barrens by day. The savannahs have next to no places to hide. We’ll have to move under the cover of night.”

Just as Lunara had said before, they had made it to the border of the Barrens right when night had begun to fall. She explained to Iphy there were oases scattered all throughout the savannah, where they could shelter under the trees and brush that grew beside the pools. They would venture far into the south of the Barrens and travel over the mountains that separated them from Feralas. It would take only two days to get there and another day to get over the mountains.

Just when Lunara was about to lead Iphy into the small valley that connected Ashenvale and the Barrens, her wisp returned. The spirit spoke of enemies in the distance, a base that barred their path. The orcs of the Warsong clan had created a barricade between the Barrens and Ashenvale. The only other way into the Barrens was a day’s travel west, which would bring the dryads dangerously close to being caught in the fel storms that now ravaged the northern tip of Ashenvale. They had no other choice but to fight.

“Iphy, listen to me,” Lunara said with a calm, steady voice. “We’re going to have to go through some orcs to get into the Barrens. You’re going to stay behind me and wait until I’m done with them. You don’t come out of the woods until I say so. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sister…” Iphy said, her eyes falling to the spear clenched in Lunara’s hand. “You’ll… be alright? Fighting the orcs all by yourself?”

Lunara thought back to the moment when the orcs had struck down her father. She could still see the blood pouring from his wounds and spilling into the earth he had given everything to restore and protect. The orcs mocked her kind, believed themselves to be better than the Gods thanks to their victory. The arrogance they displayed was so infuriating that even the memory made the dryad tighten her grip on her spear, the wood cracking beneath her fingers.

“Believe me, sister… when I’m through with them, they’ll wish they had never set foot upon our lands.”


	3. Chapter 3

3.

_It took the entirety of the War of the Ancients for Lunara to recover from her wounds, every day filled with agonizing pain and suffering. Zaetar had been by her side every step of the way, one of the many brothers of the dryads that were referred to as keepers of the grove. Just as Lunara was the first daughter of Cenarius, Zaetar was the first son, and they had braved the wilds together for as long as they had been alive, ever caring for the other’s safety and wellbeing. It was Zaetar that had saved Lunara from the clutches of the demons and brought her to the Moonglade, a secluded forest hidden in a land just north of Mount Hyjal. Through her long recovery, he was there, and soon he was offering something she had not expected; a second chance to fight._

_“There’s this Ancient of Lore I met a few decades back, he calls himself Thornwood,” Zaetar explained, gesturing with the gnarled, wooden talon that constituted his left hand. “He made a great show of knowing all about how father and his sons have wooden hands, and how to fix them. There may be a chance he could know how to… well, grow back your hand. Give you a replacement. Give you a chance to fight again!”_

_“Are you crazy?” Lunara replied through clenched teeth, staring at the stump of her left arm, now covered in blood-stained leaves wrapped in vines. “Look at me, Zaetar. I’ll be lucky if this pain ever subsides. Don’t try to tempt me with such false claims of hope…”_

_“Lunara,” Zaetar said, grabbing her shoulder and looking her in the eyes. “You’ve been a fighter for all the years I’ve known you. Trolls. Night elves. Demons. Not even father could stop you from being one of Kalimdor’s greatest defenders. I’d be damned if I let that fighting spirit be taken from you. I speak the truth when I tell you there’s still a chance. Now are you with me, or not?”_

_Lunara stared off into the forests of the Moonglade. It was calm, the moonlight causing the central lake of the forest to glow white. The tranquility here was something to behold, and she knew just how fragile it was. The denizens of Kalimdor may have won the War of the Ancients, but threats still lurked in the wilds. She couldn’t stand idle while remnants of the Legion still lingered in Kalimdor, while new threats could still grow in the centuries to come. If there was a chance of returning to the fight, she had to take it._

_She looked back at her brother, hope returning to her hearts after what felt like a thousand years. “Alright… where’s this Thornwood fellow?”_

Iphy trotted precariously through piles of slain orcs. Spear after spear, all identical to the one Lunara had originally been holding, littered the red-skinned bodies as if they were pin cushions. Massive blooms of yellow flowers dotted the landscape, flowers Lunara had grown in seconds through her mastery over the magics of nature and then beckoned to spew great clouds of poisonous spore into the air. Scores of the orcs had keeled over in agony, choking on the pollen as the dryad went to work dispatching them with her spears. Long lines of earth were dragged up by vines covered with red thorns, the plants shooting through the earth at Lunara’s command like a lasso flicked in the air. It felt good to demonstrate what it meant to be a child of a demi-god on the enemies of the forest yet again, to enact her vengeance on the vile creatures that had destroyed the World Tree.

The younger dryad stared at the corpses of the orcs, the trembling that had overcome her in Bough Shadow back in full force. “S-so much death… you are as strong as they said.”

Lunara nodded with a fierce, wide grin. “I have been fighting demons for thousands of years. You could do just as much with the proper time and training.”

Iphy’s eyes fell upon the injuries of her sister’s body, the long gashes and cuts that littered her frame, as well as the burns that afflicted her back. The younger dryad stepped forward and lifted her hands toward her sister. A bright green light glowed in the younger dryad’s palms, tendrils of emerald energy flowing into the wounds. The injuries began to close and scar within a matter of seconds, the burns receding into nothing. The green tendrils of light lingered around Lunara for a time, drawing small circles of light around her before dissipating.

“Impressive!” Lunara said, thankful for the relief from her pain. “You put the elven druids to shame with your command over restoration magic. You surprise me more and more by the hour, little sister.”

A smile still lingered on Lunara’s face, but Iphy’s face was still locked in a solemn frown. “We had no choice but to fight them. We had to kill if we were to ever heal and maintain the balance of Kalimdor. These deaths… make me sad… but we had to fight. I understand that now.”

Lunara looked around at the bodies and frowned. She had forgotten how young Iphy was, how unused to war she must have been. It was foolish of her to parade her younger sister through the aftermath of the battle, as if it was something to be proud of. While the older dryad had literal millennia to become accustomed to death, it was still in the nature of her kind to love life and power nature has to restore and rebuild, not hurt and destroy. Even demons were alive, and while Lunara felt no remorse in ending their lives due to what they wished to do to her land, she felt sad she had not worked better to hide Iphy from the chaos that now engulfed her life.

“Iphy, I take no joy in killing, but there is a point where it cannot be avoided. All this suffering, and the suffering we’ve been through, has been a product of inaction. There must always be dryads like me, ready to take the fight to those who would harm us. If our father had not been so reluctant to allow us to fight, these wars could have been won before they started.”

The younger dryad kneeled and prodded at the thorny vines that had raked through the earth and sliced through the legs of the orcs. She knocked her knuckles on them, the sound hard and solid as if she had struck wood. “Thorns… thornwood… this was what that Ancient you were talking about taught you.”

Lunara sighed, relieved she no longer had to dwell on the mistake she made shoving the death she caused in her sister’s face. “That, and so much more. In fact, most of the techniques I use were taught to me by Thornwood. I am very thankful for everything he’s done for me.”

Iphy stared off to the south, into the large savannah that stretched out before them through the sparse covering of trees that still dotted the land. The grass around them had already gone from a vibrant green to a dry yellow, and even in the shade of the trees the heat of the Barrens could still be felt.

“Where is Thornwood now?” The younger dryad asked.

Just as Lunara was about to say the location, she stopped herself. She gulped and steadied herself, her head now dizzy with memories she would have rather wished had not come back. “He died fighting in the name of the Wilds. A noble death.” Lunara said, unwilling to explain any further.

“And how does a talking tree know how to teach a dryad how to fight?”

Lunara laughed aloud at what her sister said, her grin back and even wider than before. “Believe me, sister… I had asked the same question.”


	4. Chapter 4

4.

_Thornwood Grove was nestled near the summit of Stonetalon’s highest mountain, several days travel from where Lunara had spent most of her recovery after the War of the Ancients. Lunara had spent most of the trip intoxicated on moonberry juice, the only thing that seemed to offer relief from the pain that festered in what remained of her arm. While every step had been agonizing, she trusted the words of her brother, the only person who seemed to care for her in these dark times. Even Cenarius, as happy as he was to see Lunara had survived the war, offered nothing but chastisement for the rash decision she had made to fight the demons against his orders. How her father could have spoken to her like that, in the state she was in, amazed both Lunara and her brother. It was because of this that she clung to the words of her brother now more than ever, clinging to the hope he brought to her painful, broken life._

_Colossal, emerald vines jutted from the ground, breaking in and out of the earth in large clusters that formed a wall around the grove. They towered over the dryad and the keeper, every inch of the vines covered in large, bright red thorns. Lunara and Zaetar paced around the walls of the grove for some time before finding an opening in the vines. With some effort, they pushed through the vines and entered Thornwood Grove, and immediately were faced with the patron of the place, none other than Thornwood himself._

_Thornwood was unlike any of the Ancients of Lore she had ever seen. Like the others, he was a colossal, sentient tree, members of a race that were rumored to predate even Cenarius himself. His boughs of leaves, forever locked in the orange and yellow hues of autumn, shrouded him like a cloak, and lanterns hung from branches that erupted from his gargantuan back. He walked with a wooden cane that more than likely came from his own body, and like most ancients had feet made from clusters of roots that could come in and out of the ground at will. But then there were the vines. Green with red thorns, they clutched to his body like a net, climbing over almost every corner of his colossal frame. They seemed to dig into his bark like parasites, cracks and idents scouring the wood beneath the vines. It seemed to Lunara as if Thornwood was, like her, in constant pain, a permanent scowl stretched across his wooden face._

_“You’ve. Come. To my home.” Thornwood said, gesturing to the towering coils of vines that surrounded him and his guests. The ancient then made a motion with his cane toward Lunara and her swollen stump of a left arm. “And I. Think. I know why.”_

_Zaetar walked up and bowed down on his front hooves, his thin frame and light green skin glistened with sweat from travel through the sun-scorched mountains of Stonetalon. “I greet you, Thornwood. I am Zaetar, and this is my sister, Lunara. You once told me of your knowledge of the wooden hands of keepers of the grove, and now I come to you to learn if such provisions are possible for my sister.”_

_“Yes.” Thornwood said. An awkward silence filled the grove before Zaetar began speaking again._

_“I-uh… well… Oh great Thornwood, would you be willing to lend aid to my sister? Relieve her from the pain that afflicts her so?”_

_“HA! Pain.” Thornwood mocked, his laughs rumbling like an avalanche. The surrounding walls of vines seemed to shake with laughter alongside him. “She knows. Nothing. Of pain. She knows not. How we suffer.”_

_At that moment, Lunara stepped forward, her face flushed with anger. “I know more than you may realize. I’ve felt the pain Nature has felt at the hands of the Legion as if it were my own. Their toiling with powers that did not belong to them all but shattered the world and buried much of Kalimdor under the sea. Know that I’ve fought for the good of the wilds for a long time, and if you would aid me, I would do so again.”_

_“Aid. You?” Thornwood roared. “We aid. Your entire life. You feel not. Hunger. You do. Not age. Why? Because of us. Because of Kalimdor.”_

_Lunara bowed her head. “I know my kind are prone to taking the blessings of Kalimdor without giving anything in return. I’ve struggled so hard to give back, to fight for the wellbeing of this land, but have been denied that by my father. He forbade me from retaliating, even before the night elves drew the attention of the Legion to our world. I would do anything to fight in your name. I would do anything to cause our enemies to suffer as the wildlands have suffered.”_

_“Anything!” Thornwood cried. He gestured once again to Lunara’s mangled limb. “Would you. Give. An arm?”_

_Thunderous roars of laughter echoed through the grove, and Zaetar and Lunara reluctantly joined in the cackling of the ancient. It was quite some time before Thornwood began to speak again._

_“I. Hear you. Child of Cenarius,” Thornwood cried. “Your body. Will be whole again. You will learn. What I know. But first. A task.”_

_“Anything!” Lunara said, kneeling onto the ground and lifting her arms. “What is it you ask, oh mighty Ancient?”_

_“Go out. To the lake. Fetch. Me water.” Thornwood asked, a smile creaking across his face as he pointed his cane. “Trees. Need water.”_

_“Of course! I’ll go… now…” Lunara said. But as she turned to leave, she observed how the opening that had offered her passage through the vines was gone. Zaetar looked around worryingly with her and reaffirmed her suspicion. There was no longer any way through the vines that surrounded them. They were trapped._

_“But Thornwood… there is no way out.” Zaetar said._

_“Do you. Not take from. The aspect. Of the stag?” Thornwood asked. “You ask Thornwood. For training. But you do not see. The lessons of. Your own. Nature.”_

_The ancient paced through his grove, each step slow and causing the earth to reverberate as he walked. “Surrounded. On all sides. A barrier. What is it. The deer does? When there is nowhere forward. They. JUMP. So.”_

_Thornwood looked up and lifted his cane, pointing it straight into the sky above them._

_“JUMP!”_

“Thornwood made you that arm? From his own bark?”

Lunara looked up at Iphy with a start, the spell her thoughts had inflicted upon her broken. They were in the Barrens now, the trip from Ashenvale to the oasis taking the entire night. Packs of gazelle lined the horizon, prancing through the savannah with great leaps and bounds, not much different to how Lunara and Iphy had passed through the Barrens. Lions prowled through the sparse patches of tall grass and acacia trees that dotted the land. Massive growths of leafy bushes and trees surrounded the waters of the oasis, just like the foliage Iphy and Lunara were accustomed to seeing in Ashenvale. It made the oasis the perfect shelter from both the heat and the prying eyes of the Legion’s flying, treacherous doomguard.

The older dryad stared at her left arm, the wood smooth and soundless as she opened and closed her fingers. “Yes, he did. He turned my wound into a weapon, showed me the true power of the wilds when used for war. Thornwood helped me understand that not all of our problems can be solved by restoration magic alone.”

Iphy stared into the distance, green tendrils of light once again flowing around her fingers. They sat within the oasis in silence for a time, broken only when Lunara’s younger sister turned to speak once more.

“Do you think we’ll ever rebuild Kalimdor after these storms are through? Is there any hope life will bloom again?”

She followed Iphy’s gaze to the north, where the storm now swallowed almost all of Ashenvale. A wide wall of dark black smoke rose from the horizon and journeyed east to hover over the Great Sea. Arcs of green light fell from the clouds and to the earth, the impacts rumbling through the air like the distant sound of drums. The drums of war.

Lunara shook her head. “These may be the last few days we’ll ever spend on Kalimdor, dear sister.”


	5. Chapter 5

5.

_Lunara could no longer bear to be in the presence of her father. The teachings of Thornwood had made her whole and strong again. She hunted down and slaughtered the agents of the Legion wherever they hid, the demons faltering again and again to the power of the wilds. Yet Cenarius continued to argue with her, told his daughter he did not want her to fight. She could not understand his disapproval, and so he shut herself from him, disappearing into the wilds of Kalimdor for centuries at a time, chasing down demons wherever they hid._

_One day, one of the few she ever spent in Moonglade during those years, Zaetar came to her with a gift._

_“I’m so proud of everything you’ve done, Lunara,” Zaetar explained, “Even in the face of your injuries, you are an inspiration to all of our younger brothers and sisters.”_

_“Oh stop it, Zaetar,” Lunara said, smirking, no longer tortured by the pain that had once afflicted her. “What’s this really about?”_

_“I want to fight like you. I’ve been going to Thornwood actually, to learn a few tricks myself.” Zaetar said. “Can’t rely on entangling the legs of my enemies with roots for all my problems, you know? I figured if I’m going to do this, I need to have a plan of escape, so I went and found these…”_

_Zaetar lifted two small, ivory stones, a swirl embedded into the center of each. When he prodded the markings with his thumb, they glowed a light blue hue._

_Lunara gasped. “Hearthstones? How on earth did you find TWO of them?”_

_The keeper of the grove laughed. “That’s not important. They’re not that strong in any case, only one use each. But we can use them to come back home when things look grim. To let us live to fight another day.”_

_Lunara hugged her brother tight, taking the hearthstone and pondering how she might carry it. Immediately her thoughts went to the necklace of stones and pearls around her neck. “Thank you, you don’t know how amazing this gift is. But are you certain you want to do what I do, brother? You’ll be safe?”_

_“Of course I will. I’m learning from the best, after all,” Zaetar said, laughing. “You’ve done so much good for this world. Now it’s my turn to do the same.”_

_“No, Zaetar, really… will you be safe?”_

_Zaetar took Lunara’s hands into his own and nodded, a smile caked onto his wiry face._

_“I’ll be safe. I promise.”_

_That was the last time Lunara would ever see Zaetar again._

The critters of the Barrens were fleeing south in droves. Massive packs of kodo beasts rampaged through the savannah alongside the reptilian thunder lizards, the pack animals dwarfing even the largest of the gazelle in size. Lions with emerald burn marks on their thighs and manes skulked through the edges of the land, the fel magic making them look sick and gaunt despite all the game they had access to hunting. The storms created by the Burning Legion to destroy the world were making their way into the Barrens now, scorching the earth and creating great clouds of smoke. Lunara was thankful they had fled as quickly as they did.

At last, they were at the mountain that bore a road into Feralas. The main paths were riddled with danger, but the one she knew best was safe, and would take them exactly where they needed to go. The mountain chains that stretched out of Stonetalon and separated the Barrens and Feralas were nowhere near the size of Hyjal, but Lunara still found them just as magnificent. They were a large boon in the ten thousand years of demon hunting that took place between the first and second wars against the Legion.

But as dawn started to creep over the horizon, Lunara got more and more panicked. The mountain pass was not there. She could not understand it – for millennia she traversed the craggy ridges and crevices that made up the path between the Barrens and Feralas. How could it be gone? Her wisp returned from long scouting missions into the mountains and confirmed her findings – the pass was gone. It was now blocked by rocks and boulders that had seemingly tumbled down in a colossal – _unnatural –_ avalanche.

Whatever or whoever had blocked the pass must have done it during the war, when Lunara was busy fighting on the front lines to halt the Legion’s incursions onto Mount Hyjal. When the resistance had been eradicated and there was nowhere left to retreat or run, she used the gift Zaetar had given her to teleport herself into the dense thickets of Ashenvale and live to fight another day. The stone hung powerless and inert on her neck now, and she laughed to herself at the fact that had she tried to use it in a time like this, it would have taken her into a storm that would have most certainly resulted in her immediate death. Fear took root in Lunara’s mind as she realized they were now trapped between the mountains and the storm.

Lunara considered her options. She knew there was a way into Feralas through the treacherous gulches and ravines of the place known as Thousand Needles, but she seldom traveled there and was not certain such a pass existed. The grassy plains of Mulgore most certainly had a pass into Feralas, being nestled right between that jungle and the Barrens, but Lunara had a feeling whatever blocked the road between the Barrens and Feralas had blocked that path as well.

Lunara grew pale as she realized she had only one option. One she had been considering and doing her best to avoid ever since the beginning of her journey. One that, not only would bring them dangerously close to the fel storms but bring her face to face with a memory she had desperately wished would remain buried.

“What’s wrong, sister?” Iphy asked, staring up at the mountains that stretched before them. “I… don’t see this pass you were talking about.”

“It’s gone.” Lunara said, staring at the storms to the north. “And there’s only one other path I’m certain is still open to us. One… I’m not certain I’m willing to take.”

“What is it, sister? What will we have to do?”

“We’ll have to go… through Desolace.”


	6. Chapter 6

6.

_Lunara had felt the death throes of the vibrant meadows that had been nestled between Feralas and Stonetalon Mountains long before she heard the rumors. She felt the wilds themselves cry out in pain as they were devoured and swallowed whole by an unseen force. An entire, verdant land the size of Moonglade had been transformed into a white, sun-bleached desert in a single instant. And no one could understand the source. But that was not the only tragedy that had befallen the lands of Kalimdor. As soon as the lands of Desolace formed, Zaetar had gone to investigate alone, traveling down into the dark caverns that stretched beneath the land to seek the source of the corruption._

_He never returned._

_Many years later, malformed, hideous looking keepers and dryads began emerging from the caves of Desolace. They called themselves the centaur, their upper bodies a pale white and riddled with scars and cancerous growths, while their lower bodies were that of mangy, dirty horses. They made war with the land, with the natives of Kalimdor, and with each other, their souls so filled with hate and malice they sought nothing more than to bring the whole world to the brink of chaos. But that was not what hurt Lunara the most. These creatures claimed they were the sons and daughters of a creature made from living stone known as Princess Theradras – and were born from a union between that terrible monster and Zaetar._

_Lunara and many other of her brothers and sisters tried to commune with Zaetar through the Dream, to convince him to return to Ashenvale and forgo whatever terrible pact he had made with Theradras, but he would not see reason. He claimed he was in love, but Lunara knew whatever it was he loved that caused them to bear creatures as vile as the centaur was not something he loved willingly. Lunara was certain the illness that had afflicted Zaetar’s mind and prevented him from seeing clearly was connected to the Nightmare, the corruption that had just begun to sprout and show its face in the world, but she did not know how._

_It was not long before centaur captured in the aftermath of gruesome battles on the borders of Ashenvale began to spread a second more terrible rumor. The monstrous offspring of Zaetar began to claim that they had_ killed _their father, and that his soul was now trapped within the clutches of their beloved mother Princess Theradras. Attempts at communication through the Dream seemed to reflect this fact; not only was Zaetar never heard from again, but his soul could not be sensed in the Dream, the place where all souls of the champions of nature went upon death. It seemed the tales the centaur spun were true – and brought Lunara into a sobbing rage._

_She met with the offspring of another one of her brethren, children of a keeper known as Remulos. His oldest child, Lunara’s nephew Celebras, explained how Zaetar was always jealous of Remulos and the attention he got from his father. How despite being older and more in tune with the lessons he had been taught that Cenarius always favored Remulos over him. Lunara knew of this jealousy well, as Zaetar confided in her more than any other of his brothers and sisters. This must have been what lead him to take Lunara’s path of hunting down enemies of the forest wherever they hid in Kalimdor, what led him right into the terrible grasp of the stone giant that now bound him to Desolace._

_Lunara despaired over having not been there to help him. They should have investigated the corruption of Desolace together. She cried out why he had not used his hearthstone to escape the madness and return home, why he had not used the gift he had once so selflessly granted to his oldest sister. Now she felt only anger at his death and enslavement in Desolace. Looking at Celebras and the gathering of other children of Remulos, she thought of a plan her father would never approve of. But such disapproval had never stopped her in the past._

_“Then we’re going to save his spirit,” Lunara said, “if the stories of these beasts are to be taken as truth.”_

_“What do you mean?” Celebras cried out in dismay, his ice-colored face wide with shock._

_“Gather your brothers and sisters and anyone else you can find that’s willing to fight,” Lunara cried. “We’re going to war with the centaur. We’re going to march into the caverns of Desolace, destroy the source of this corruption, and free_ my _brother!”_

Lunara did not want to return to the wastelands of Desolace, but now that it was a matter of life or death, of safety in the Dream or a terrible, agonizing death in the storms, she knew she had no choice but to retrace her steps. She and her sister would have to go back north, enter the lower region of Stonetalon Mountains, and exit through a gulch that leads into Desolace. From there, they would have to brave the full breadth of those terrible, pale deserts, and whatever horrors that lied within.

They could no longer afford to travel only at night. They traveled in broad daylight at a fierce gallop now, desperate to reach Stonetalon before the storms did. Because of this, they begun to draw the attention of the Barren’s most terrible inhabitants: the centaur. The terrible creatures could be seen in the distance, watching Lunara and her younger sister make a mad dash toward the storm.

“Those creatures… they are centaur, are they not?” Iphy panted as struggled to gallop aside her older sister. “Will we be safe if they attack us?”

“If they come, they die.” Lunara said plainly. “Those monsters are no match for the true children of Cenarius. They have faced me before and know their place. Besides, they will dare not chase us into the storms.”

Lunara imagined what Ashenvale must look like, now fully engulfed by the fel storms of the Legion. A scorched, barren wasteland, the storms perhaps even having the strength to strike through the soil and break apart the earth itself. She remembered the doomguard that are no doubt hovering over the mountains of Stonetalon at this very moment, desperate to fly down and strike any unsuspecting creature they happen to come across. The doomguard were terrible, but the dryad was not certain they would be worst than what they would have to face in Desolace.

“I tire… sister…” Iphy cried, losing ground as her sister continued to surge forward in a gallop. Lunara dropped down to a steady trot, listening in fear at the desperate, exhausted heaving of her sister.

“You must be strong for me, Iphy.” Lunara said. “It will only take us a day to travel through Desolace. I promise you that.”

“It will take _you_ a day to travel through Desolace.” Iphy gasped. “I am not so acclimated to… traveling halfway across the world and back as we have.”

“Trust me, sister…” Lunara sighed, staring into the storms ahead of them. “When you see Desolace, you will have all the strength you need to get through that terrible place.”


	7. Chapter 7

7.

_An unexpected ally had marched down from the mountains of Stonetalon to join the host of dryads and keepers of the grove that now marched into the heart of the nightmarish deserts of Desolace. Thornwood himself had sensed the corruption that had taken hold of the land and knew within his heart it was not a conflict he could avoid._

_“These centaur. Are vile.” Thornwood said. “We must. Destroy what has. Afflicted this once great. Land.”_

_With the great Ancient of Lore in tow, Lunara and the sons and daughters of Remulos began their warpath into the home of the Centaur. Resistance between them and the caverns was weak; in fact, they observed the centaur were more inclined to attack_ each other _than they were to attack the keepers and dryads that charged through their land. They must be truly mad indeed, if they were not capable of seeing the threat to their existence that now lied before them._

_The centaur called the caverns that had claimed Zaetar’s life the ancient burial mounds of Maraudon. They considered it sacred, and the centaur who dwelled at the mouth of those wretched caves were the ones who fought the hardest. The battle lasted for many hours, but the centaur’s crude axes and spears were no match for the Nature magic, thorns and claws that the dryads and keepers brought to the fight. While the lands of Desolace were of no help in empowering the champions of Nature, the presence of Thornwood gave them the power they needed to drive the centaur back, and as such they breached the caverns of Maraudon with ease._

_Celebras and his siblings charged into the caves, Lunara opting to stay with some of the other dryads and keepers and protect their rear. But soon it was obvious ever stepping foot in those wretched caverns was a terrible mistake. Celebras’ brothers and sisters dragged themselves out of the caves, vomiting and hacking up dark green sludge. Whatever corruption that had befallen Zaetar had taken root in the caves, and any descendent of Cenarius who dared enter them were hardly capable of resisting it. Lunara saw that Celebras was not among those who just narrowly escaped the corruption and assumed the worst._

_“We. Have lost!” Thornwood cried. “The corruption has. Claimed more souls. We needed more. Strength. We needed. Cenarius!”_

_“No!” Lunara raged. “My father would have rather left Zaetar to suffer than lead this mission himself. This was our only chance, and if we have come too late, it is his failure to take responsibility over Kalimdor’s wellbeing and allowing these threats to grow out of hand!”_

_“You speak. So harshly of him.” Thornwood mused. “Perhaps you are. Blind. To the truth.”_

_“Silence, you overgrown oak tree!” Lunara said, racing onto the ridge that would lead her away from the caves of Maraudon and down into the dunes of Desolace. “We did what we could, and we failed. So be it. It is not our fault that…_ by Elune!”

_Lunara witnessed a horde of centaur the size she had never seen before stretching over the dunes of Desolace. They had cared little for her warband before they breached Maraudon, but now that the sacred burial caverns of the centaur had been attacked, it appeared it had taken little else to unite them. Now, scores of the foul beasts – her nephews and nieces – were swarming over the sands, racing to annihilate the remnants of her now dying army._

_“The centaur. Love their. Parents. More than you do.” giggled Thornwood._

_“How dare you say that! They KILLED their father, my BROTHER!” Lunara snapped, kicking at the ancient with her front hooves. “I love my father, it’s just… he’s… blind! Blind to what the lands of Kalimdor need from us, its chosen champions!”_

_“Blind to. Kalimdor’s needs? Perhaps.” Thornwood said. “But blind to what. You need? No.”_

_“What are you even saying? He has stopped me from fulfilling my duties to the forest at every step of the way! I wouldn’t have even needed this blasted, wooden arm, had he taught me to fight rather than expect me to sit idle as the Legion desecrated my homeland!”_

_“He tried to. Teach you a. Lesson.” Thornwood explained. “One. Even I. Could not.”_

_“What lesson? After all that’s happened, what could he have possibly wanted to teach me?”_

_“The lesson. Of Patience.”_

“Please… sister… I cannot… run much longer…”

“Damnit Iphy, if we don’t make it to Desolace by sunrise, we’ll be DEAD!” Lunara raged. “Those clouds, they could get carried by the wind down Stonetalon much faster than they did on Hyjal. I am certain of it. We need to go. Now!”

Iphy sobbed between desperate intakes of air. “I wish… I was home…”

“Our home is dying, Iphy. All that’s left is the Dream, and that’s all there ever will be.” Lunara cried. “The Dream of what was. What should have been.”

“Please sister… just look…”

“The way into Stonetalon is just up ahead. It’s a clear shot to Desolace from -”

“LOOK!”

Lunara looked up at the clouds, then further. Mount Hyjal still loomed in the horizon, burning just as brightly as it had when they first began their quest across Kalimdor, if not more. But now, the dots of what were colossal, flying creatures stretched across the horizon. Hundreds of them. Shades of red, green, yellow, and blue clashed with the dark, tiny black specs, the doomguard barely decipherable from this distance.

“Well then.” Lunara said. “Our ancient allies, the Dragonflights, have finally come out of hiding. Far too late to stop anything.”

“The clouds… are rolling back…” Iphy cried.

“What?” 

“The clouds! We have time. Please. Let me…. Rest…”

Iphy collapsed to the ground, holding her hand out to a tiny patch of acacia trees just east of them.

“Please… let us wait.” She cried, pointing at the receding clouds to the north.

Lunara looked up toward Stonetalon Peak. She thought of the remains of Thornwood Grove, how it must have looked after over a thousand years without Thornwood’s presence, how it would look when the storms came to consume it in flames. She then let her mind slow down. How would it look in a thousand years? In ten thousand? Was the storm really capable of destroying the world all together? Or was it merely a setback, one she may not be able to survive but the world could? Was it not one of Cenarius’ greatest lessons that life would always be capable of finding a way?

“Fine then. We’ll rest,” Lunara said.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

_Only a handful of the many dozens of dryads and keepers that had embarked on this gambit into Desolace remained, harshly outnumbered by the scores of centaur that now surrounded the sacred grounds of Maraudon. Lunara was helping thin out the numbers of the vile creatures that now clotted the thin pass that connected the hills that housed the caves and the surrounding desert._

_“Hmmph. No jumping. Out of this one.” Thornwood mused, gesturing to the steep hills that surrounded both them and the cave entrances. “Tough place. To escape.”_

_“Would you stop standing there and do something?” Lunara screamed, sick of being teased by the Ancient as her brothers and sisters began to fall, one by one, in battle with the centaur. “Our people are dying! Our souls may never leave this accursed place?”_

_“Patience!” Thornwood snapped, “I plan. Something. Yes. Your kind will be spared.”_

_“My kind? What about you?”_

_“I have. My own plans. But you will. Not like them.”_

_“Thornwood? What are you doing?”_

_“Having. Patience.”_

_Suddenly, the Ancient stormed past the line of keepers and dryads and charged through the centaur-filled pass. The creatures cried out in shock, throwing their spears and axes in a desperate attempt to halt the colossal tree but failing. Thornwood all but cleared the pass of centaur, and they moved to surround him as he charged deeper into the lines of the centaur._

_“An opening!” one of the dryads beside Lunara cried. “He’s distracting them! We can break for Stonetalon!”_

_“By Elune...” Lunara cried. “He’s getting himself killed!”_

_Thornwood struck out with a large sweep of his cane, taking out nearly a dozen centaur in a single blow. The crude magic users of the centaur were now working to conjure a tiny storm above him, one that struck him with lightning and eventually set his body aflame. This did not seem to bother or even cause Thornwood any pause. He was a charging, blazing monstrosity of a war machine, swinging and kicking at the tiny creatures that squabbled at his feet._

_“Retreat! Run! Now’s our chance!” Lunara yelled, realizing their chance to run was closing fast. “Thornwood is giving us a chance to fight another day!”_

_As the remains of Lunara’s host fled north into Stonetalon, she turned back and watched the death of Thornwood. The flames and constant barrage of metal weapons had finally caused his legs to buckle. Thornwood swiped and raged on the ground but was growing slower and slower. Soon, he was nothing less than a bonfire smoldering in the center of the wastes of Desolace. Lunara prayed a silent thanks to the great Ancient, for everything he had done. She promised she would one day return and avenge him, even if she did not know when that day would be. And with that, she turned tail and fled into the mountains of Stonetalon, leaving the nightmares of Desolace behind her._

The sandy dunes of Desolace now stretch before Lunara once again. She and her sister had taken a moment of much needed rest in the Barrens, but when it became apparent the storm clouds were on the move again, they had no choice but to continue their march. Within hours they passed through the winding trails of Stonetalon, descended into a small valley at the base of its highest peak, and came upon the pass into Desolace.

Miles of white sand stretched before them. From here, Lunara could see the hills that contained Maraudon, see the now flat and lifeless spot where Thornwood had once laid down his life to save her people. She looked up to the hills and remembered the sickness that had befallen those of her kind that entered the caverns just over a thousand years ago. What was the corruption like now? Would even the dunes be safe?

The storm clouds rumbled behind her. Lunara and Iphy had no choice but to move forward.

The centaur did little to hide their encampments from plain sight. Large tents made from brown, tanned hides dotted the landscape, the rows upon rows of spears jutting out of the ground acting as barricades against invading centaur and whatever else may attack them in their land. Lunara saw movement in the encampments but discerned there was no more than a handful of centaur in each of them, nothing like the numbers she had seen during the battle to try and free her brother’s spirit. She was not certain where most of the centaur had gone, but she was not interested in finding out. She led her sister in a wide arc around the hills of Maraudon, hoping to steer away from the burial grounds and make as straight of a gallop as she could toward Feralas.

The sun stood in a cloudless, gray sky. The heat bore down on them like daggers. The distant rumbling of thunder from the fel storms spurred them to run faster. Lunara looked back and saw the storms were moving much faster now; they were only a quarter of the way through Desolace and Stonetalon Mountains had already been claimed entirely by the Legion’s destruction. Black specs drifted over the mountains of Stonetalon. The doomguard were on the move again.

Lunara pondered how close the dragons had gotten to wrestling control of Mount Hyjal from the Legion. Would they have been successful if their forces were combined with the resistance that once struggled on that mountain, at a time that seems like a lifetime ago? That was how the mortals of Kalimdor, the dragons, and the gods had fought in the War of the Ancients; together, a single force acting together as one. Back then they had defeated the Legion when it had full access to the _original_ Well of Eternity, a fount of power much greater than the one that exists upon the peak of Hyjal. The defenders of old would have had no trouble wrestling control of the mountain from the Legion that currently afflicted the world. Of course, the modern defenders of Kalimdor were weaker as well: the dragons had merely a fraction of the power they once held, and Cenarius’ death had all but ensured the Wild Gods would never be as organized and quick to rally as they had been once before. But what if, rather than fleeing across the world to a portal into the Emerald Dream that may not be there or may not even be safe, Lunara had rallied the remaining resistance fighters, Wild Gods and dragons and made a host with the strength to brave the storms of the Legion and defeat them? Was such a host even possible at any point between now and when the Legion claimed Hyjal?

A bolt of lightning lit up the skies behind Lunara and, judging from the way the ground trembled beneath her, it had struck down way too close for comfort. It was too late to change any decisions she had made now. All that was left was to brave the deserts of Desolace and reach the Dream portal in Feralas. Reflections on her choices in the face of the death of her world would have to wait.

The storm was getting faster. The sisters had long since passed the hills of Maraudon, but they saw they were being watched. The centaur were aware of their presence now, and there was a chance they would have the means to outrun Lunara and Iphy. Lunara lifted her left hand, a wooden spear growing from the wood before light yellow sap surged forward and solidified into the tip of the spear. She detached it from her hand effortlessly and twirled the weapon between her fingers as she ran, feeling the weight dance upon her palm.

“There’s a chance most of the centaur have already evacuated Desolace,” Lunara explained, “We may not be safe even in Feralas.”

Iphy could do nothing more than nod, her exhaustion as well as her fear of the coming storms driving her to silence as she so desperately hung to the hope her sister would protect her. The lands she once called her home were gone, reduced to ash and cinders by the Legion. All she could hope for was vanish into the Dream and take heart in the serenity it promised to bring.

A ball of bright green light surged from the storm clouds and toward the earth. Lunara observed its fall, her face locked in a scowl as her eyes watched it crash somewhere in northern Desolace, lost in the distant, sun-bleached dunes.

“That was an infernal,” Lunara said. “Demons born from rock and fel-fueled fire. If the lightning doesn’t kill us, they will.”

Iphy panted as she stared off into the north. “I met… a mountain giant once. He was… nice. I thought creatures made from rock were supposed to… be nice.”

Lunara stared off into the hills of Maraudon, now a tiny white speck on the horizon. “Believe me… some of them really, _really_ aren’t.”

They were being followed. Just as it looked like they were clear of Maraudon and the horrors that lied in its stone chambers beneath the sands, a horn sounded from the cliffs, and the bone-white dunes of Desolace came alive with a flurry of hooves and spears. Centaur surged from over the northern horizon and gave chase, holding up war banners etched with blood-red markings in a script even the well-traveled Lunara could not identity. An encampment to the south must have heard the call to arms, for barely minutes after the blaring of the horn more centaur began closing in from the direction the dryads were fleeing. They were being surrounded. They were being hunted.

There was no cover, no trees to disappear into, no shadows to meld with and vanish into the night. No life remained from the forests that once flourished in the death-addled lands of Desolace to empower Lunara and aid her in the coming battle. She would tire quick in a direct skirmish with the centaur, and while a great many she could bring down, more and more were pouring from the sands. Everywhere she turned, there was another centaur. Then another. And then she saw a creature riding on the back of one of the largest of the horse-men, one not of the centaur but something entirely more vile and sinister.

A satyr, a minion of the Burning Legion, was among the ranks of the centaur.

Lunara could see her wisp soaring high above the heads of the corrupted, hate-filled creatures that now closed in on the elder dryad and her sister. She had sent it forward to warn her of any threats that may lie in the pass between Desolace and Feralas, but the centaur of the southern dunes had rallied so quickly the wisp had not come in time to warn her. There no was no longer anywhere to turn, and no one where to hide. The centaur were corralling the dryads, forming a tight – but notably distant – circle around them. They dared not approach any close, but they still succeeded in trapping their prey. Iphy was trembling beside her sister now, staring out at the soulless, black-eyed monsters that surrounded them.

“What do you we do now, sister?” Iphy cried.

“Calm yourself, little one,” Lunara said. “If the centaur wanted us dead, they would have done so already.”

Iphy seemed to relax her stiffness just a little at that fact, but Lunara didn’t. She was certain they were after something from the way they were waiting, but she did not know what. And she wasn’t certain if it would be better or worst than the slow, grisly death she knew the centaur were fond of granting the visitors of their desert home. Remembering the fate that befell her brother Zaetar and her nephews and nieces lost to the caverns of Desolace some thousand years past, she swallowed hard. Whatever the centaur were planning would be far worse than death indeed.

The satyr dismounted the centaur that Lunara could now see was not just large but nearly twice the size of its kin. The creature bore two massive tusks in the corners of its mouth and a massive halberd that even from a distance was noticeably drenched with drying blood. She was certain it was one of the Khans, what the centaur called their leaders in war, pillaging, and anything else that involved violence. And even that mighty beast, as well as all the other centaur that surrounded them, were kneeling before the satyr. They were completely subservient to the demon that now approached the dryads alongside a host of the centaurs’ female sorcerers.

Lunara spat at the ground the moment she knew the satyr and his entourage were within shouting distance. “It does not surprise me creatures as vile as the centaur would join the ranks of the Legion. They fit in right alongside you, demon.”

“Legion?” the satyr asked, raising a head adorned with two long, serrated horns toward the sky in laughter. Purple fur coated his dark blue arms and legs, and Lunara observed it was matted in a sickly green slime that no doubt stemmed from the corruption that befouled Maraudon. “Do not be so foolish. We are no pawns of the Legion. And it pains me how _harshly_ you have addressed my companions. After all, they are family to you, are they not?”

Lunara gritted her teeth. Iphy was cowering behind her hind legs, crying profusely as she whimpered about how the centaur that had formed a circle around them were now closing in.

“A satyr that has betrayed the Legion?” Lunara wondered aloud. “A strange decision, given what they’ve done to Kalimdor. It is strange to see a creature as power-hungry and self-centered as you choosing to be on the wrong side of history.”

“Such delusions!” The satyr cried. “Those storms are powerful indeed, but nowhere near the strength to enact the Legion’s final plans. The demons will ravage this world, but they will fail in their quest to outright destroy it. I find pity you had led yourself to believe that.”

The elder dryad was fuming now. She knew satyr only spoke in riddles and lies, but the idea that there had been a chance to keep fighting had plagued Lunara’s mind even before being goaded by the demon that stood before her. Was the satyr right? Had her cowardice been for nothing?

“No… the destruction the Legion inflicts upon the land will bring about something far worst than the death of the world…” the satyr explained. “and something entirely in _my_ favor. Bring forth Celebras!”

“Celebras? What do you mean by –”

Lunara cried out in utter shock and horror. Celebras, the first son of Remulos, the one who had led the charge into the caverns of Maraudon only to never be seen again, was _alive._ At a second glance, Lunara was not so certain ‘alive’ was the proper term. Celebras’ body looked tainted and rotten, his antlers cracked while tumors and blisters dotted his upper half. A dark green sludge oozed from his mouth, and his eyes emitted an aura of rage and hatred that rivaled even that of the centaur.

“You… _abandoned us…_ in those caves!” Celebras roared, slimy spit erupting from his mouth. “How long we waited for you to save us… how hopeful we were you would come. I will take great pleasure in making you join us in our suffering.”

“Celebras…” Lunara cried. “What have they done to you? What have you done to him?”

“Foolish dryad. Are you blind to the darkness that surges forth from the very ground beneath your hooves? To the dark powers that have been inherent to its world since it’s inception?” The satyr asked. “The body of Zaetar acts as a gateway into the Dream, fueling the masters below and making their machinations a reality. If the corpse of the first son of Cenarius could offer such power, imagine the possibilities if I obtained the powers of the first daughter… while she was alive?”

Just as Lunara was about to let her spear fly, Celebras raised a wooden staff in his right hand, brought forth a blinding, dark green light, and inflicted the most agony Lunara had ever felt in over ten thousand years. Dark tendrils of black power flew from the tip of the scepter, assaulting Lunara’s mind and soul with energies that burned like acid beneath her skin. The elder dryad keeled over, dropping her spear as she fell to the sand. She turned and saw that Iphy was falling victim to the same fate.

“The gardens of Maraudon are beautiful, my aunt,” Celebras mused. “And when you join us, you will share in our love of the caverns. You will join us… forever.”

Lunara groveled and spasmed on the sands of Desolace, the centaur that surrounded her coming closer and closer. Her eyes rolled back, their amber glow growing dim and weak, as she lost consciousness and began to dream.


	9. Chapter 9

9.

_The Emerald Dream. It was a great privilege to be able to walk its verdant paths in the physical sense, and it was the birthright of the dryads to be able to phase their bodies into it at will. This blessing was short-lived, for soon a terrible corruption infected the dream, creating Nightmares so vast and so terrible it was no longer safe for them to exercise their gifts, leaving only the portals of the Great Trees as the only physical passage into the Dream that was safe._

_For countless numbers of the younger dryads, the only glimpse they ever got of the dream was through their slumber, entering the realm by leaving their bodies behind and allowing their spirits to roam the plains temporarily. Such practices came with their own dangers, but those were few and far between, for while the Nightmare could soil the happiness and joy of their sleep, they always had a way to escape, to return to the waking world and leave the darkness behind them._

_No such escape existed for Lunara now. The dark magic of Celebras had forced her into the Dream, at the heart of a Nightmare so vast and powerful it tugged at her soul like the whirling Maelstrom of the Great Sea. It pulled her far beneath the earth, into a darkness so vast as to be immeasurable. And it was here the great Nightmare would try to devour her hope and slaughter every last vestige of her sanity._

_Lunara was now stumbling blindly through a forest she could not identify. Every tree was lifeless, its sap dark red and bleeding from the bark like blood as insects poured from the rotten wood and swarmed the ground beneath her. She could hear the wails of Iphy in the distance, but could not tell the direction it came from, nor what horrors afflicted her. The elder dryad was alone in the dark, consumed by disease and death. That was when the voices began._

_“You could have stopped me.” Zaetar said. “You could have told me my quest for glory was foolish. You let me die.”_

_“Brother… I thought… you would not be so… reckless…” Lunara cried._

_“Reckless?” her father Cenarius spat. “You have been nothing but reckless your entire life! You lead your own brothers and sisters, as well as their own children, to their deaths! I tried to teach you patience, but it’s clear that was impossible. You are nothing more than a monster, who would throw away the lives of those who trust you at a moment’s notice!”_

_“Everything I did…” Lunara replied, choking on what felt like blood in her throat. “I did to protect them. To protect Kalimdor. I could not stand idle as corruption and demons lingered in our lands. I did it to SAVE us!”_

_“Save us?” Iphy asked from the darkness. “I could have stayed in Ashenvale with the resistance you abandoned. Instead you led me to a fate worse than death. How could you do this to me?”_

_“Iphy! NO!” Lunara wailed. Iphy’s body had befallen the same fate as Celebras, covered with malignant growths and slick with a dark and terrible green slime. The Nightmare had infected her, as it would soon the older dryad._

_“Your life has. Been one failure. After another.” Thornwood said. “You do not deserve. Our gifts. You do not. Deserve. Our favor.”_

_“I’m sorry…” Lunara spat up blood, her head seizing up as her limbs twitched and shook. “I tried… so hard…”_

_“Failure is your only constant.” Celebras said, his voice muffled, as if she listened to him while underwater. “But the darkness… can make you whole again. Show you true power.”_

_“No… I will never… serve you!” Lunara was swiping at the air now. She looked down at her wooden limb and saw it was rotten, termites oozing from holes in the bark. She wanted to rid herself of it, to let go, to be free of the torture she was in. Tears flowed from her like rivers, the smell of death causing her to gag. She was lost. Hopeless._

_And then, a great emerald light surged forth from the darkness._

_Like a shockwave that rivaled the power of the one that rang out from her father’s death, a figure raced toward her and pushed back the Nightmare. Zaetar had come to her, as he had done almost ten thousand years past, lifting her from the ground, holding her close._

_“Sister… I’m real.” The ghost of Zaetar said, without the bitterness of the voice that had ravaged her thoughts before. “I have… little time. Theradras will come to claim my soul soon.”_

_“Brother… I’m… so sorry…”_

_“Do not be sorry for me. My fate… is my own fault,” Zaetar explained. “But there is still hope left for you. I come here only to show you.”_

_“What hope, brother? The world is… dying. The Legion won. We failed.”_

_“Look before you now,” Zaetar said, lifting his arms, the dark fog that enclosed them receding even further. They were in the empty dunes of Desolace now, as white and lifeless as they had been in the waking world. But something was different now. There were green lights scattered all throughout the parched earth, little emerald stars dotting the land for miles around._

_“It’s… beautiful.” Lunara said, amazed she could ever say such a thing about Desolace. “What are those… lights? Life… it’s everywhere! Here?”_

_“The sacrifice of our good friend Thornwood, all those years ago, did more than offer you a chance to escape,” Zaetar explained, his head held high and proud. “His acorns fell to the ground as he fought, scattered themselves far across the sands. They have survived the worst of Desolace’s corruption. There is no doubt in my mind they will survive the storms as well.”_

_“What are you saying, Zaetar?”_

_“The satyr is right: The Legion cannot destroy this world with the powers of Hyjal alone. And this world will rally and drive them from the heights of the mountain long before the demons consolidate the energies to do so. In time, their terrible reign of chaos will fade. Every inch of Kalimdor could be scoured of life before then… but these seeds will remain. Dormant. Waiting.”_

_Zaetar helped Lunara to her hooves. He dusted off her left arm, now free from the maggots and pestilence that had once afflicted it. Nothing the Nightmare had done was real. The dryad knew this but could not see it through the pain and suffering of her own thoughts. Zaetar’s spirit was the candle in the dark that showed her the truth and freed her from madness._

_“In time, these lands will be reborn. It could take a thousand, ten thousand, years, but the hope of redemption lies here. Thornwood sowed the seeds of rebirth, and even through my imprisonment, I will ensure that hope remains.” Zaetar continued, tears streaming from his translucent, ethereal face. He reminded her of the wisp, an echo of the past, not quite there but not entirely gone. He was… different now. But still a presence that could be felt and help aid the ailing world. He was one with the Emerald Dream, the true Dream, not the foul Nightmares that haunt the dark corners of the realm. No amount of torture or corruption could change that, not even the satyr and his terrible masters._

_Lunara looked up and saw a white light. She saw herself lying on the ground, peacefully asleep, Iphy just as calm as she snuggled up against her. The murky outline of the satyr was pacing the sands madly, pointing at the sky where the storms were. His frustrated outbursts echoed through the Dream, damning Celebras for taking too long to corrupt the dryads._

_Zaetar cried out in pain. Pieces of his spirit were being ripped away from him and into the fog. Princess Theradras was dragging his soul back to her._

_“There is little time left. I cannot hold the Nightmare back any longer.” Zaetar said. “You must awaken and leave this place. You and Iphy are still destined to do great things in this world. Walk the dream by body, as I walk it through soul. Take shelter from the storm under its boundless forests and hills. When Kalimdor is safe again, you must return and set things right. Do this for the good of Life itself. Do this for me.”_

_“I will not fail the wilds again. I will not fail you,” Lunara said, her hearts filled with hope and determination. “Thank you for once again saving my life, dear brother. I will never forget you.”_

_“No, sister. Thank you. Thank you for doing what father could not. Thank you for holding onto hope even in the darkest hours of the world. Now go… share your hope with Kalimdor. Emerge from the storms a hero and show the world what it means to be a champion of Nature.”_

_As Zaetar’s spirit faded into nothing, Lunara swam towards the light. Even as the smog of the Nightmare closed in once more, she did not lose sight of her destination. The waking world still had need of her, still had need of heroes. Once, her doubt had told her that their flight to Feralas was born of cowardice, of defeat. But now she knows the truth._

_The Dream will allow them to live to fight another day. Even if it were to take another ten thousand years, Lunara would fight again._

“Is it done? Have they been broken by the Nightmare?” The satyr spat, striking Celebras as he and the other centaur sorcerers strained amidst their spell work.

“I… I don’t understand…” Celebras spoke aloud to no one in particular, his concentration entirely on his ritual. “She is pushing back the Nightmare. It seems her resolve is stronger than I had originally believed.”

Lunara still pretended to be asleep, feeling the fur of Iphy’s lower body against hers. Their calmness had certainly alerted the demon and his lackeys something was wrong, but they were not aware of the true threat that laid before them. The powers of Nature were surging through Lunara in earnest now, not from the sands of Desolace but from the Dream itself. One last gift from the forest. One final miracle.

The elder dryad could get up now and kill the satyr in a single blow. She could kill dozens, maybe hundreds, of centaur before she fell. But her goal was not a fight to the death. She and Iphy had to make it to Feralas before the storms did. The fel-fueled tempests were so close that the reverberations of the earth from the lightning strikes could be felt from where she laid. The satyr and his companions were running out of time. Lunara wasn’t certain how they would make it back to Maraudon even if they had succeeded sooner.

She observed a change in light beneath her eyelids. The storm was closer than she thought; it was _above_ them now. The satyr was furious at Celebras’ failure, striking him over and over, the sound of the demon’s claws raking the keeper’s skin causing a chill to run down Lunara’s spine.

“Hratha! Tell your warriors to restrain the dryad with their nets!” the satyr roared at the Khan of the centaur. “Celebras, prepare the portal back to Maraudon. We have no more time. Break the spell and we’ll continue it in the caverns.”

“As you wish, master…” Celebras wheezed, his voice in pain and still rife with an inherent, ever present rage. Lunara dared not imagine how she would have acted if the Nightmare had broken her as it had broken him.

In times past, Lunara would have taken the mentioning of nets as the time to jump from the ground and strike. But not now. The dryad could feel the presence of Thornwood beneath her feet, can sense the seedlings that slumber beneath the dunes. Their presence reminded her of a lesson Thornwood had tried so hard to teach her. He may not have been alive to witness it, but the lesson had finally gotten through to the dryad.

_Patience,_ Lunara thought. _We will have our chance to escape soon._

The fel storms of the Legion raged above her. Lightning struck so close Lunara could feel the hairs beneath the foliage of her head begin to stand up. Then she heard the flapping of wings and terrible, hate-filled roars above her. Demons. The doomguard had come.

Centaur began to cry out in pain. The demons were attacking in the distance, striking at the warriors that had formed the outer circle that surrounded them. The satyr roared in rage and moved to pick Lunara up off the ground.

“Get her through the portal, and get me those damn nets, Hratha!” the satyr said, struggling to drag Lunara’s body across the sand. “By the Old Gods, if she wakes up now, we’ll have to kill her to get her into Maraudon. Move, damn you!”

Lunara felt the satyr’s dark purple fur brush against her own, his odor so foul she almost gagged and revealed her consciousness. His claws dug into her skin and drew blood. But it was not yet time to fight. The doomguard weren’t enough of a distraction for her to escape. But they weren’t the only threat that had come with the storms.

She finally heard what she was waiting for. Something large and burning, high above her, the sound growing closer. Centaur were calling out above the sounds of battle and lightning to look up.

“It’s heading right for us!” the satyr cried. “Move!”

The infernal crashed barely a dozen yards away from them, knocking the satyr off his feet and freeing her from his grasp.

With a calmness that stood in defiance of the storm that had moved to engulf her, Lunara opened her eyes and stood up from the ground.


	10. Chapter 10

10.

_“Surrounded. On all sides. A barrier. What is it. The deer does? When there is nowhere forward. They. JUMP. So.”_

_Thornwood looked up and lifted his cane, pointing it straight into the sky above them._

_“JUMP!”_

Lunara gathered her younger sister into her arms and jumped.

The centaur that had accompanied the satyr had formed a second, smaller circle around her, a long, weighted net drawn out behind them. The moment Lunara stood from the ground, they had flung it towards her, one last desperate attempt at ensnaring her. But Lunara’s leap had brought her six, seven, even eight times her height off the ground, her agility so profound the centaur must have thought the dryad had sprouted wings and begun to fly.

Iphy woke up mid-jump and screamed. The ground was surging towards them, but when they met it, Lunara landed gracefully on her hooves, still holding her younger sister close to her upper chest, her eyes surveying the warzone that had sprung up between them and Feralas.

Most of the centaur, both from the inner and outer concentric circles of warriors that surrounded them, were either staring up at the infernal that had crawled out of the crater of its impact or fighting off the doomguard that harried them from above. Only the satyr watched Lunara as she began galloping toward the south, her leaps and bounds carrying her quickly across the dunes.

“The dryad, you fools! Go after the DRYAD!” The satyr barked, pointing a clawed finger at his escaping quarry. Shaking his head, he struck Celebras one last time before leaping into the portal back to Maraudon, desperate to catch Lunara but not willing to risk his life amongst warring demons and centaur to do so.

The ranks of the distant centaur had been broken. Far behind the lines of the horse-men, the pass into Feralas could be seen, the bordering trees rustling violently in the winds of the storm. Lunara made a beeline toward that pass, eying the centaur that had turned from their fighting with the Legion to observe her. Several of the warriors moved to block her path.

Instead of the hundreds that once halted her, only a few dozen began charging to meet her in battle. Lunara dropped Iphy to the ground, the younger dryad rushing behind her as the centaur of the outer ring closed in.

A spear grew from Lunara’s wooden limb, the tip as bright as her glowing, amber eyes. In night elf culture, being born with orange-glowing eyes was a good omen, a sign of great promise and prestige. Night elves with amber eyes were thought to surely become legends in the primes of their lives.

It was time for Lunara to show these foul centaur what made her legend amongst her own people.

Lunara kicked up with her front hooves. Even in the dead and dying soil of Desolace, the power of the wilds surged from her and into the ground, sprouting the vines that had once infected Thornwood in ages past in a matter of seconds. They shot through the earth, tearing a great rift as they traveled, their blood-red thorns raking the legs of three of the centaur. Another line of vines struck the centaur as they fell, eviscerating their lower halves, spilling their organs into the sands.

A barrage of spears came toward the dryads. Lunara turned and pulled Iphy to the left, a spear glancing her right arm as she did so. The older dryad winced, throwing her hand forward and dropping seeds into the ground in front of her. A massive yellow flower grew from the sand and exploded with pollen, creating a cloud of poisonous spores that blocked the centaur’s vision and choked the life from those who found themselves too close to the noxious bloom.

Iphy quickly ran her hand across the wound, violet blood spilling to the sand. “I’ll help you, sister. I’m right behind you.”

Even Lunara, who had been hardened by millennia of fighting, was jealous of the strength and confidence her younger sister was demonstrating. Feeling confident her sister had her back, Lunara turned to face her assailants again.

The elder dryad threw spear after spear at the centaur, a new amber-tipped weapon growing from her artificial limb almost as soon as the previous leaves her fingers. Iphy was channeling her own magics into her sister, the restorative energies sealing any cuts and scrapes Lunara fell victim to as she battled. Soon, the fight turned to close quarters, Lunara no longer throwing spears but rather striking at the centaur up close with wide sweeps of her weapon. One particularly large centaur began charging forward, and rather than dodging left or right, she dodged _up_ , leaping into the air once again.

The centaur, and even one of the nearby doomguard, watched as Lunara went flying into the air. At the apex of her leap, she threw her spear straight down and impaled her enemy in the collarbone. Lunara landed just behind him, the centaur spazzing and choking on his own blood before falling lifelessly to the ground.

Iphy, seeing the opening her older sister just made, surged forward and began running toward the pass. Lunara followed just behind her, her galloping gait taking her side to side as she dodged centaur, demons and fel-fire alike. Lightning was striking all around them now, one such blast hitting a centaur head-on and vaporizing his body. Lunara jumped over the fuming remains of the creature, throwing her spears as she ran, buying both her and her sister as much time and space as they could as they fled.

Her wisp came surging toward her, previously lost in the storm and centaur ranks, but through it all still managed to be by her side. It sped in front of her and moved up and behind the elder dryad. Lunara turned and saw what the wisp was trying to show her: a doomguard was hot on her trail, diving at her from the sky. It was no longer just a tiny black spec on the horizon; she could now behold the terrible, flame-licked orange skin of the foul beast, its dark black armor etched with yellow, blazing runes. Two short horns erupted from its head, and its face was twisted in a wicked, ravenous snarl filled with several rows of sharpened teeth. Every beat of its winds reverberated through the air like thunder, and its howls filled the dryad’s hearts with pure terror and dread.

Shaking the doubt from her mind, Lunara turned and threw a spear behind her and towards the doomguard, but its size belied its speed; it swiftly dashed side to side, deftly dodging her attack. She tried to strike it a few more times before growing a spear and holding onto it, twirling it in her hands as she ran. The dryad ran her hands across the wood, imbuing a spell into the bark that she knew the demon would not expect. Just as it seemed like the doomguard was in range to make its final dive toward her, she turned and fired again.

The demon moved out of the way just as it did before, but then the spear splintered into four separate projectiles. The wood had twisted and snapped apart in the air, contorting into several sharpened blades that flew at the doomguard in several directions. It could not dodge all four of the miniature spears; one struck it in its wing, causing it to swirl and fall to the ground, the earth shaking from the crash. Her attack would not kill the demon, but it had forced it to the ground, and no agent of the Burning Legion could ever hope to match the speed of a dryad on an open field.

While the demon was now left to squabble in the dust behind her, the centaur would not be so easily escaped. As corrupted as they were, they were still descendants of Cenarius, and they followed just behind the two dryads, pelting the earth behind them with spears. Looking ahead of her and seeing Iphy’s speed begin to wane, Lunara scooped her sister up in her arms yet again, making a mad dash to the mountain pass that opened just ahead of them.

The storm lashed out at the mountains separating Feralas and Desolace. Boulders began toppling from the hilltops, onto the sands, onto the road into the jungle. At the sight of an avalanche heading straight toward the road, Lunara picked up her speed and ran faster than she ever ran before. The centaur didn’t matter now; if she became trapped in Desolace, she and her sister would be doomed.

Just as they entered the pass, another strike of lightning surged overhead. A rock was struck from its course and sailed into the air, directly toward where Lunara was running.

The older dryad closed her eyes, fearing the sudden and swift oblivion that was coming to consume her. But then she heard a gust of wind, failed to feel the rock crush her body, and opened her eyes. From Lunara’s arms, Iphy had shoved her hands forward and, with a great gasp, had formed a gust of wind so powerful the rock had been held aloft in its flight for just a moment before crashing down right behind them. Lunara hugged her sister tighter as they barreled through the mountain pass, the avalanche rumbling above them.

Lunara could hear the wails of centaur as they became trapped under the falling rocks. The avalanche finished its course, rolling over the roads behind her and sealing the path shut. Where it once threatened to damn her and Iphy to death, it now saved them, sealing the terrors of Desolace behind them for good.

The dryad didn’t stop running, even when the canopy of Feralas enveloped her and she left the boundaries of the storm. She ran off the road and into the undergrowth, her form hard to track amongst the brush and fallen timber. Holding Iphy close, Lunara vanished into the forest, racing to the south east, where the Great Tree of Feralas, and therefore entrance into the Dream, lied just ahead.


	11. Chapter 11

11.

Jademir lake stretched out before the two beleaguered dryads. The storm, caught on the mountain range that had barely an hour before tried to crush them, raged far behind them. As Lunara had promised, the jungles of Feralas seemed almost untouched by the war. There were no blackened patches of earth, no pillars of smoke rising in the distance, no treacherous demons lurking in the shadows of the woods. Above the distant rumble of thunder, birdsong could be heard, and on the opposite side of the lake, Lunara could see a pair of deer drinking, their legs stiff and bent back, ready to jump away from any danger lurking in the water at a moment’s notice. But there was no danger here, neither for the dryads nor their less sentient companions across the water. While the Legion’s storms would soon pass over the mountains and turn the forests of Feralas to ash, it would not happen for a little while longer. If only for a moment, there was still peace and safety to be found in Kalimdor.

Far behind them, even above the mountains that held back the storm, Mount Hyjal could be seen, its peak lost in an ocean of storms, the lightning and flames now encompassing almost the whole of Kalimdor. While once the inhabitants of these lush jungles may have starred up in horror at the coming storm and turned to flee, they would have soon realized there was nowhere left to run. All that was left south of Feralas was a handful of deserts and the vast, endless seas. Thus, life remained as it always had, the creatures of Feralas preferring to die in the comforts of home rather than the harsh dunes of Silithus. They slept, grazed, hunted and pranced as they always had, indifferent to the coming end, an end they had no hope of escaping.

Lunara knelt on her front hooves in the waters of Jademir, washed the blood, dirt and sand from her skin and fur. She submerged herself in the icy waters, let herself become lost in her thoughts. At the heart of the lake was an island known as Bough Shadow. It was home to the second Great Tree of Kalimdor, another child of the World Tree Nordrassil. It towered over Feralas, its emerald crown battered by the winds but otherwise unharmed. No mounds of deceased guardians lingered in its shadow, and its gateway, resting atop a marble edifice of pillars and stairs, was wholly intact. The physical way into the Dream, the pure Dream, one untouched by the Nightmare, was clear. Their salvation lied just a swim away.

Iphy raced into the water, determined to reach the distant shores of the lake’s island before her sister did. Lunara followed soon after and, despite her best efforts, was bested by the younger dryad. So many years of racing across ground had led her to forget her swimming was less than perfect, and so it came as a pleasant surprise her sister had surpassed her on the lake. Shaking the water from her body, Iphy turned and laughed again, her face cheery under the dark bags beneath her eyes and the dirt that still clung to her skin. They were not without their injuries at the end of their journey, but they were alive with a future to hope for. That’s all that mattered to the dryads in that moment.

And soon, they would be able to share that hope.

Lunara stepped up the white stone of the platform that held the dream portal. Hues of green and blue echoed within the frame, a constant spiral that mesmerized her, brought a calmness upon the dryad where the Nightmare once brought despair. Soon, this portal would be destroyed, and Feralas burned, but for now, the hope of the Emerald Dream remained. And the dryads would not be alone in their enjoyment of this one final miracle of life on Kalimdor.

The older dryad turned to face the jungles that stretched out before them across Jademir lake. She held up her hand, and a green light, akin to that of the fel storms but of a wholly different nature, appeared. It grew brighter and brighter by the minute, a beacon of hope, a beacon calling the denizens of Feralas forward and into the loving embrace of the Dream.

The two deer looked up from their drinking. They stared intently at Lunara’s light, then, after another moment of hesitation at the waters edge, surged forth. Soon, the rest of their herd emerged from the shadows and swam into the water, and birds of a hundred different shades and sizes came swooping in above them. Bears, rabbits, even the reptilian faerie dragons, creatures with the wings of butterflies but the face and body of chameleons, flew from the forests to return to the Dream. A swarm of the native denizens of Feralas flowed past Lunara and Iphy, the light in the elder dryad’s hand shining bright, drawing the creatures of Kalimdor to their new home, to the safety and comfort Feralas would no longer be able to give.

Confident they’d done all they could to alert the wildlife of Kalimdor to the presence of the second portal, Lunara turned again to face the swirl of the ephemeral gateway. She confided in Iphy that the Emerald Dream was a thousand times more beautiful in person than it ever was when observed through dreams and then beckoned her to be the first to step through. Iphy, no longer afflicted by the shaking that had beset her in Ashenvale, walked forward with eyes filled with wonder. The light of the portal flowed over the younger dryad’s body, and soon after Iphy stepped forward and crossed into the Dream. Lunara’s wisp dashed after her, desiring to keep an eye on Iphy and ensure even in this brief moment of separation its companion’s little sister would be safe.

Lunara stared up beyond Dream Bough, across the lake and toward the fel storms. They were lurching down the mountains now, as they once had many miles away, in a land once called Ashenvale, in what was once the home of a Great Tree that was as beautiful and bountiful as the one that stood before her. Soon, both would be gone, but echoes of their grace would remain, memories of what they once were. They would be different, but still at one with the Dream, the place where all of Nature’s favored go upon death. Life would continue, both within and out of the Dream, and no matter how many years it would take for that statement to ring true, the hope of its return would remain.

The dryad paused, alone for the first time in what seemed like a thousand years. There were a few stragglers, bears and stags and even a few hyenas who had come as refugees from Desolace, making there way to the portal, but soon the storm would come and the way to salvation would be sealed. Lunara had saved as much of Feralas as she could and hoped anyone else had either already used the portal or were at peace with the life they were soon to lose.

The thought of death frightened the dryad, if only for a moment, and dragged her back into the dark malaise that had once infected her in the Nightmare. But life on Kalimdor extended beyond the simplicity of a single lifetime. Countless creatures like her were immortal, immune to age and sickness, and those who did not have such a gift always found their way back to the Dream, no matter what corruption and hatred may have once bound them. In the Emerald Dream, as spirits or otherwise, they would be whole again, and while the Dream was not without its dangers, it was boundless, an infinite, verdant realm drenched in the power of life. No storm could drive them to the edges of their home, no mountains could halt their escape and force them into the clutches of death. Life was eternal in the Dream, and so long as even a dead, charred husk of Kalimdor remained, so too would the Dream, an unwavering echo of the life that once graced the land.

And with all her negative emotions behind her, Lunara stepped forward, allowed herself to be enveloped by the swirling green iris of the child of Nordrassil’s portal, and let herself become one with the Dream.


End file.
